Currently on view at: Getty Villa, Gallery 110, Stories of the Trojan War

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Object Details

Title:

Papyrus Fragment with Text from Homer's Odyssey

Artist/Maker(s):

Unknown

Culture:

Greek

Place(s):

Egypt (Place created)

Date:

1st century B.C.

Medium:

Papyrus

Dimensions:

4.4 x 1.9 cm (1 3/4 x 3/4 in.)

Credit Line:

Gift of Lenore Barozzi

Inscriptions:

Inscriptions: verso has eight lines partially preserved, transliterated from the Greek: "N / EREITH / MENOU / ON / NENTA / IENTOI / NAUTON / O BASIL"
Identified as or related to Odyssey 21.89-94:
"...Sit down. Get on with dinner quietly, or cry about it outside, if you must. Leave us the bow. A clean-cuyt game, it looks to me. Nobody bends that bowstave easily in this company. Is there a man here made like Odysseus? I remember him from childhood: I can see him even now." (R. Fitzgerald, 1963)
The recto has seven lines partially preserved "EPHYNT / DUGOOSA / ZETHEADE / OSEYDA / POLYM / N KAI THIN / TON ERY"
Identified as Odyssey 10.397-403:
"They knew me, and clung to my hands, each man of them, and upon them all came a passionate sobbing, and the house about them rang wondrously, and the goddess herself was moved to pity. Then the beautiful goddess drew near me, and said: 'Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, of many devices, go now to thy swift ship and to the shore of the sea. First of all do you draw the ship up on the land...'" (Loeb)

Alternate Title(s):

Scroll Fragment of "The Odyssey" (Display Title)

Department:

Antiquities

Classification:

Texts

Object Type:

Papyrus

Object Number:

76.AI.56

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They recognized me, and each of them clung to my hand. The lovely longing for lamentation came over us, and the house echoed terribly to the sound, and even the goddess took pity, and she, shining among goddesses, came close and said to me: "Son of Laertes and seed of Zeus, resourceful Odysseus, go back down now to your fast ship and the sand of the seashore, and first of all, drag your ship up on the land..."

This tiny papyrus fragment, broken on three sides, preserves a passage from the Odyssey by Homer. Believed to have been composed in the 700s B.C., the Odyssey tells the story of the hero Odysseus's return from the Trojan War. This passage describes the moment when Odysseus frees his companions, who had been held under a spell by the sorceress-goddess Circe.

Sheets of papyrus, made from the fibers of the papyrus plant that grew in Egypt, were the main writing material in the ancient world. From the form of the letters used in this text, scholars can date this papyrus copy of the Odyssey to the first century B.C. Additional writing, possibly a commentary on a later section of the Odyssey, covers the back side of the fragment.

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